Detective Murdoch investigates the murder of Dolly Capshaw, a mid-wife who, it turns out, was also an abortionist.

A killer disguised as the grim reaper vows to reveal a grisly secret by terrorizing the associates of a medical research institute.

While investigating the murder of an Irish girl, Murdoch discovers a plot to kill a visiting British Prince.

It is a dark and stormy night. A lonely light burns in the tower of stately Beaton Hall. Suddenly, lightening flashes across the sky and a bloodcurdling scream is heard. Chauncey Beaton runs down the halls of the mansion from an unseen pursuer. He comes to a Juliet balcony and realizes he has nowhere else to go. Murdoch arrives at the scene, where Chauncey's body lies crumpled on the paving stones. He obviously fell from the balcony but did he jump or was he pushed?

Julia is getting married to Rafe in a week - the letter she wrote to Murdoch confessing her love for him is lying beneath his desk blotter and he has no idea it exists. On top of his heartbreak, he has made no progress on a case involving a young French woman who had arrived in Toronto to visit her sister, and then vanished without a trace. The case is further complicated when Murdoch arrests a dashing young Frenchman breaking into a suspect’s apartment, only to learn that he is a detective who has been hired by the disappeared woman’s father.

The murdered body of an elderly drifter is found near the docks with a whiskey flask clenched in his hands. It looks at first like another drunk has met an unkind fate. But, when Ogden determines the victim had the liver of a teetotaler, Murdoch inspects the whiskey flask and finds a secret compartment containing what appears to be part of a coded message. The case takes an even stranger turn when a man identifying himself as the dead man’s son comes to the morgue to claim his body. Investigations lead to political conspiracies being uncovered and a far bigger case is on their hands than first expected.